Amazon dislikes labor unions, a lot

The Washington Post writes:

Amazon calls cops, fires workers in attempts to stop unionization nationwide

As Amazon prepares to argue that the union victory in Staten Island should be overturned, employees around the country are accusing the company of using illegal anti-union tactics

Employees at Amazon facilities around the country whose union hopes were buoyed by the labor victory at a warehouse in Staten Island in April say in labor board filings and interviews that the company has been calling police, firing workers and generally cracking down on labor organizing since that historic win. Amazon has been accused of illegally firing workers in Chicago, New York and Ohio, calling the police on workers in Kentucky and New York, and retaliating against workers in New York and Pennsylvania, in what workers say is an escalation of long-running union-busting activities by the company.

On Monday morning, lawyers representing Amazon argued that representatives from the NLRB’s [National Labor Relations Board] Brooklyn office should be excluded from the proceedings entirely. Previously, Amazon had filed a motion requesting that the general public, including the media, should be barred from attending the hearing, but a labor board judge denied the motion last week.

In its opening statement, Amazon argued that both the union and the regional office of the NLRB that conducted the election acted in ways that unfairly turned the election in the union’s favor. The union, Amazon argued, intimidated, coerced and surveilled employees as they voted, specifically citing the “loitering” of union president Chris Smalls outside the voting tent. Lawyers for the union said the use of the word loitering, and implication that workers were afraid of Smalls, who is Black, had racial implications.

Eric Milner, a lawyer representing the Amazon Labor Union, called the company’s objections to the election “a frivolous sideshow.” Union lawyers tried and failed to have a slew of Amazon’s objections dismissed earlier on Monday.

In his opening statement, Milner denied Amazon’s claims that the union intimidated workers, saying that “if anything, the evidence is going to show that employees were afraid of and felt coerced by Amazon, not the ALU.”

He also defended the NLRB’s conduct. “It’s not Region 29’s fault that Amazon breaks too many laws to keep up with,” he said. “Amazon doesn’t get to sit here and flagrantly violate labor law and then claim bias when the agency investigating those laws decides to do their job.”

So here we go again. Another dispute with capitalism against labor, or labor against capitalism if that’s preferable. Who is lying and who is truth telling, if anyone? 

And not surprisingly, the company wanted to fight in darkness by keeping the media and public from witnessing the dispute. That tactic, along with historical animosity of capitalists toward labor, suggests to me that Amazon has things to hide and they aren’t nice and/or legal. So my starting assumption is that Amazon broke laws in its effort to prevent unionization of its facilities. If evidence comes to light that Amazon didn't engage in illegal activities, then that opinion will need to be reassessed and maybe reversed.